Seven Stars out of Ten Stars (*******/**********)
Well. Well, well, well. So I begin.
Last night I popped The Burning Plain into my DVD player and settled down to watch, knowing nothing about it other than it starred Charlize Theron and Kim Basinger and was the project of the guy who did Babel and 21 Grams. These facts obviously then led me on to the rather troubling question – why has nobody seen this film?! You’d think with such a strong creative team behind it, it would at least have a bit of notoriety. In fact, I had read about its troubling theatrical run in the UK some months previous, where it struggled to make even £10,000. Oh well, I thought, let’s bung it in and have a bit of Charlize. Although she’s not an absolute favourite of mine I’m very much in the pro-Theron camp; even if Monster didn’t actually rock my socks like it did for some others.
I don’t want to give too much of the plot away, but suffice to say it’s a rather terse melodrama, criss-crossing different time periods to show us two sets of mother-daughter relationships from the same family. There’s some good stuff here I guess, although ultimately none of it is worth a huge big gushing film-geek collapse. The three central performances absolutely work. If you like beautiful, neurotic women who stay in loveless marriages and conduct boringly illicit affairs with badly-acted Mexican men you’re going to love Kim Basinger. A nice little mastectomy sub-plot leading to a big boob(less) reveal and the emotional freedom of taking a lover who loves/lusts you for your big boobless self? Oh yes. Being incredibly fragile and nervey throughout this rather hackneyed process? Oh yes yes yes. Looking absolutely BUFF TING for an old lady wife? INDEED. Yes, that’s a lot of boxes ticked that I’m certainly responding to. YOU GO KIMMY. Charlize and the striking actress (Jennifer Lawrence) who plays her younger self throw in similarly arresting (although not-quite-as-lovely-on-paper) performances.
Will I be raving about these turns in a few years time? Probably not. These ladies grabbed me for the duration of the film, yes indeedy, but I know you similarly minded lot out there, and me, will have them fade from our collective memories alarmingly quickly. What will stay is the rather visceral visual conclusion to the film, which you know is coming from the beginning, but hits hard when it does, down fully to the rather majestic lensing that consistently elevates the content of the film. Oh, and there are various cute sex scenes with an assortment of emotionally damaged peeps, if that’s your thing (it certainly is mine).
Definitely seek this one out, but for a quiet moment, and not for anything more than a mildly satisfying sojourn into those un-glamorous, yet actually very glamorous, lives that in times of neurotic film geekiness you might fancy a bit for yourself. But only if majestically lensed. Obvs.
Tags: 21 Grams, Babel, Charlize Theron, Guillermo Arriaga, Jennifer Lawrence, Kim Basinger, Monster, The Burning Plain
September 26, 2010 at 4:45 pm |
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